Monday, August 22, 2011

The Greatest Law

Law of Attraction...we have all heard it before, but what does it mean? I guess on its most simplistic level its 'like attracts like'

Everything that's coming into our lives we are attracting into our lives. And its attracted by the power of the images we create and holding in our minds. It's what we are thinking... Whatever is going on in our minds we are attracting to us

                      "Every thought of yours is a real thing - a force"
                                  Prentice Mulford (1834 - 1891)

"The simplest way for me to look at the Law of Attraction is if I think of myself as a magnet, and I know that a magnet will attract to it."
                                              John Assaraf

It is the law that determines determines the complete order in the universe, every moment of our lives, and every single thing we experience in our life. It doesn't matter who we are or where we are, the law of attraction is forming our entire life experience, and this powerful law is doing this through our thoughts. We call the law of attraction into action and do it through our thoughts.

The law of attraction is a law of nature. It is as impartial as the law of gravity. If you jump off a building the law of gravity doesn't consider if you are a good or bad person, it simply follows its law and you will hit the ground. Likewise with the law of attraction. These laws are principles. Principles generate the same result each and every time, no matter where, when, or who uses them. Principles work when you work them. Principles don't wear out, rust out, or give out. They last forever. They are timeless and tireless. Principles cannot be overused. Check out the Principles Blog Post .

We are the most powerful magnet in the universe! We contain a magnetic power within us that is more powerful than anything in this world, and this magnetic power is emitted through our thoughts.

The law of attraction says 'like attracts like', and so as you think a thought, you are also attracting 'like' thoughts to you. Think about it for a second, have you ever started to think about something you were not happy about, and the more you thought about it the worse it seemed? That's because as you think one sustained thought (continuously thinking & picturing an image in your mind), the law of attraction immediately brings more 'like' thoughts to you. In this case you have gotten more unhappy 'like' thoughts come to you that makes the situation feel its getting worse. The more you think about it, the more upset you get.

We have all experienced attracting 'like' thoughts when we've listened to a song, then found that we couldn't get that song out of our head (SWAGGER JAGGER!) The song just kept playing over and over in our minds. The law being that even though you we may not have realised it, we gave our full attention and focus of thought to it. As we did that, we were powerfully attracting more 'like' thoughts of that song, and so the law of attraction moved into action and delivered more thoughts of that song, over and over again.

Your life right now is a reflection of your past thoughts. That includes all good things, and all the things you consider not so good. Since you attract to you what you think about most, it is easy to see what your dominant thoughts have been on every subject of your life, because that is what you have experienced. However we no can now use this law of attraction to shape our lives from this point on and focus only what we want to have.

Whether that be the perfect job, more money, the perfect relationship or perfect health if you can think about what it is you want in your mind, and make that your dominant thought, you will bring it into you life.

Our job is to hold on to the thoughts of what we want, make it absolutely clear in our minds what we want, and from that we start to invoke one of the greatest laws, the law of attraction. You become what you think about most, but you also attract what you think about most.






Sunday, August 21, 2011

Exploring Leadership / Can we lead also?

Exploring Leadership has always interested me, and I want to do this through explaining 3 popular ways that people define leadership.

1. Leadership means being the dominant individual in a group
2. Leadership means getting things done through people
3. Leadership means challenging the status Quo, promoting a better way
For many, leadership means doing all three of these things but there are subtle and important differences. Exploring these differences is essential for understanding leadership and enabling us to define its role and not just using the term "leadership" without knowledge of its importance within society and even more interestingly within sport.

Leadership means being the dominant individual in a group

Going back in time and with cases today, with primitive tribes and higher animal species the dominant individual was the leader. Being the leader simply meant having the power to attain and hold the top position for a reasonable length of time. However, contrary to definition 2, you could be the leader without getting anything done through others. A leader was the person in charge even if the group was in a stable state where people went about their business as normal. As long as group members or team members obeyed the leader's rules, then the leader did not even need to be actively involved in there lives and movements, let alone get anything done through them. You could also be the leader in such a group without promoting a better way as suggested by definition 3. If you didn't need to be voted into power, why have the need to have a platform to change? You simply seized power. Yes the reality is such leaders may have led groups successfully in battle and built great monuments with them, but is it possible to be a leader without achieving anything through a group effort. Of course it is! The meaning of leadership, according to this definition, is to simply be at the top of the pile

Leadership means getting things done through people

Great leaders throughout history have led their groups to momentous achievements, but the idea that leadership should be defined as getting things done through people has developed most fully in both modern elite sport & business, which is all about achieving results. As the importance of achieving results has grown and become more complex, the leadership challenge has grown from simply issuing orders to a "few hands" to the subtle co-ordination of highly skilled,  knowledged workers to build sophisticated machines that put men on the moon. In essence as society began to change the word management and what responsibilities were attached to this word and began moulding it into this more relevant word leadership. First, we pushed leadership into a corner by suggesting that you needed to be an inspiring cheerleader to be a leader, leaving no room for quiet or simply factual leadership. Secondly, by attaching leadership to getting things done through a team, we associated leadership with being in charge of people and therefore ruling out positionless leadership. These two differences are separated into two terms of formal & informal ( leadership without the power basis of formal leadership). In either case, you need to have the personal presence, organisational skills and motivation to take charge to be a leader, and ultimately get jobs done through people.

Leadership means challenging the status Quo, promoting a better way.

We have always felt that leaders have the courage to stand up and be counted. They go against the grain, often at great risk, to call for change. We only need to look at Martin Luther King Jr, his leadership rested not such on his ability to speak with power and conviction in his voice but more so because he marched and spoke against injustice. He challenged the status quo and promoted a better world and people could not help but follow the path to something more promising or better. This is what made him a leader. A captain of a elite sports team more often than not has to challenge the status quo mid-game, and change the actions of his/her team because they believe in a better way to promote a better way to win if the other way isn't working. A leader will always have accountability for there decisions and this is what gets other people inspired to follow. People put there trust in people that trust themselves.

However in exploring these points & definitions, if you think through what it means to challenge the status quo or advocate change, there is no necessary implication that you have to be in charge of the people you are trying to influence. The bottom line is that this 3rd definition gives us a way to break the stranglehold of the previous two definitions.

Leadership reinvented for the 21st Century

If we cast aside the first 2 definitions the what is left is leadership means nothing more than promoting a better way. We then need to say leadership does not entail being controlling, that leaders can be as inspiring as they need to be, good at coaching, developing and empowering people.
A critical fact is that the power on which leadership is based is shifting from having a dominant personality to the ability to devise new ways of working. This is revolutionary because it suggests that leadership can no longer be about group domination. Leadership is a brief influence impact, an episode or act, not an ongoing state or role, a perfect example is the ability needed to make instant decisions in critical moments in games/matches. Strictly speaking there are no longer any leaders, only leadership. This view captures the fact that leadership is a fleeting state that can shift quickly from one person to another. It is an impact rather than a type of person or position. It must be so if it can be shown by outsiders.

Key Features of Leadership Reinvented

So in conclusion leadership consists where:

- It does not involve managing people to get things done.
- It comes to an end once those led get on board. It sells the tickets for the journey; management drives the bus to the destination.
- It is a discrete episode, a one-off act of influence, not an ongoing position of dominance.
- It is based on the promotion of a better way.
- It can be shown bottom-up as well as top-down.
- It can be shown by outsiders and between competing individuals or groups.

EXAMPLE IS LEADERSHIP